Air catches in my throat. That’s… well, it explains a lot. Like why he still hasn’t moved out of his old apartment. I’d thought it was about logistics. But maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s about control. Fear. Pride.
“Okay,” I begin, choosing words as if one wrong one might have him running away. “I get it. Given everything that’s happened?—”
Kael’s eyes flash a warning that I’ve brushed too close to something raw.
I stop myself, swallow, and the silence stretches. It’s hard to know how to help with something as heavy as abandonment.
I reach out to him just as he slowly exhales and moves to sit beside me on the couch.
“You’re right,” he concedes.
I put my arm around his shoulder. “You don’t just get over something like that.”
“I’m not mad she left,” he says, eyes red, because I know he still blames himself. “I’m mad it fucked me up. It’s fucking this up.” He gestures between us.
“It’s not fucking this up. You’re scared, and that makes sense.”
He jokes about my obsession with finances, but I’m starting to see he’s just as ruled by fear, only his is messier, older, and deeper than mine.
“Then why do I think you’re pulling some power move, even when I know you’re not?”
“You’ve been hurt. And yeah, that’s shaped you. But it also made you into the person I—” I stop myself, but the words hang there anyway. “Made you someone I—You’re wonderful.”
He gives me a shaky smile and squeezes my hand.
“I’m not your father,” I say. “Or your mom. Or Alistair fucking Blackwood.”
He looks at me like he’s searching for cracks in my words, somewhere to poke through and prove I’m bluffing. But I’m not.
The moment stretches while my skin prickles with heat.
And then he kisses me. It reminds me of last night and the night before and the night before. Of tripping over him at the retreat. Of his skin on mine. I almost forget there was ever a version of my life that didn’t include him.
It feels good to make Kael feel better, which should probably worry me more than it does. Because even though everything I said was true, this? Us? It’s a risk.
Kael doesn’t come with guarantees. He’s a wildfire that’s gorgeous, all-consuming, and unpredictable, and I’ve spent my whole life building firebreaks.
“Friday night,” I say, fresh worry planted in my bulletproof plan, but determined to salvage part of it. “Date night.”
“Fine. But no celebrating.”
“No celebrating,” I say, trying for a lighter end to the conversation. “Absolutely no fun whatsoever.”
When he doesn’t respond, my joke sounds more like a warning as I think about the gallery, the plans, and the tiny seed of worry taking root. The thing about worry is that once it’s planted, it grows. It finds the cracks, then spreads until it’s wrapped around everything.
Maybe we are moving too fast. Maybe I’m taking too many risks. Maybe I should have stuck to my spreadsheets and sworn off relationships altogether. Maybe Kael is the kind of beautiful risk that could burn through everything.
CHAPTER 27
KAEL
Later,after the TV’s gone dark and Ash has fallen asleep with one arm across my waist, my phone lights up on the nightstand.
We need to talk. My place. Friday night. Bring Asher.
The text knocks the breath from my lungs. It’s one thing for Alistair to keep his hooks in me, but I won’t let him drag Ash down with me.
Ash stirs when I ease out from under him, his fingers twitching at my hip like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. I’d give anything to crawl back into bed and let this be my whole life.
